I agree Vandraad. Finding new fun gear, or even going to a specific place in hopes of getting the named to drop that piece is a big part of the fun for me. And if you have a system where you're customizing your gear I suppose it's possible that the named will drop the things that allow for that, but it just doesnt seem nearly as compelling. And if you have a system in which everyone starts from the same basic template of gear and upgrades that gear you're almost assured of the min/max with everyone of a particular class having essentialy the same stats at any given level of advancement.
Sure, there has come a point in past MMOs where there's that specific loadout of gear that everyone feels is "the best" and you end up with everyone of a given class pretty much looking the same. But this is a topic those on these forums and the devs have acknowledged as being largely a product of a lack of content, a lack of varied gear, and a lack of mobs dropping it. I'd much prefer to have an idea what a player is geared with by looking at them, or better yet wonder "what the hell is that?!", than knowing that everyone is wearing basically the same thing but with modified stats.
Feyshtey said: ... And if you have a system in which everyone starts from the same basic template of gear and upgrades that gear you're almost assured of the min/max with everyone of a particular class having essentialy the same stats at any given level of advancement.... . I'd much prefer to have an idea what a player is geared with by looking at them, or better yet wonder "what the hell is that?!", than knowing that everyone is wearing basically the same thing but with modified stats.
For the first point, I know many players that would have worn different gear for their class if it was available. In some games it simply didn't exist, being so limited, class bound and basically "one set per tier" for their level. Given the myriad choices of adding to stats, resists, and adjusting ability arsenal features, players would not all be the same, by class. This would allow players to build their own specialization. I know how I would specialize an Enchanter would be entirely different than how my brother or other guildmates would.
Regarding the second point; That is exactly how it is today in wow, rift, eq1, eq2, lotro and more primarily PvE games. Everyone, by class, is wearing identical gear, because there is only one choice. BIS for that class is x. You wear x. I think VR can do better than repeating the mistakes of history.
If you give players more than one choice via the ability to customize everything about their character, including ability arsenal, and gear, then they can avail themselves of those other choices.
A very simple example: If the rewards from solo, heroic, and epic quests for gear were permanent slot adjustments, enhancements, imbues, enchants, blessing or augments for class specific arsenal abilities, this would allow the creation of situational gear. Multiple sets of it, too.
Additionally, having said adjustments, enhancements, imbues, enchants, blessing or augments drop from named mobs reliably, and/or common mobs rarely, with combination upgrade mechanics, would further enhance the situational gear mechanic, allowing players to enhance what they wish about their character, of course all the above with appropriate caps in place.
@vjek
You havent changed anything. You have simply transitioned from wearing a piece of gear to applying an augment. All the same arguments apply to either. If there are enough augments to customize a particular slot on your character the way you want it, the exact same can be said of gear so long as there are enough variety of gear. The only difference is that instead of saying, "Sweet! That helm that just dropped looks badass! And it's an upgrade!", instead you'll be saying, "Who's turn is it to loot the +10 INT aug... yay... ".
I'm torn on this topic really. I loved upgrading gear with new items. I loved looking at my gear slots in EQ and seeing which piece I wanted to upgrade and researching locations on where I should go next to upgrade the piece. Or, going to the EC and trying to buy items to upgrade my worst pieces. Having evolving gear or upgradable gear just doesn't offer that same satistifaction. HOWEVER,
I loved the Coldain Prayer Shawl Questline and the Coldain Ring Quests. I enjoyed the EQ Epic weapon quests as well, but, if these quests and items were offered - I would want them nearly impossible to obtain like they were in EQ, so it would be an indication of status of those who completed them. I wouldn't want it to be run of the mill that by the time you reached max level in the next expansion you simply had to complete some tasks and quests along the way and there may be one raid boss to kill.
The Prayer Shawl especially made you focus on nearly all the trade skills, which equated to a ton of a time invested, which is something I could get behind again as an upgradable item. It basically rewarded a player who wanted to experience everything in the game.
Also, I don't want "tiered" weapon epics, but, for the non-raider, I do think having a sword that was given at the last group tier would be good as well, something not nearly as good, but an option for a group-only player - perhaps there would be a group -> crafting path versus a group -> rading path versus a group -> raiding -> crafting path.
Lastly, the problem with upgradable epics is that inevitably there will need to be an Epic 1.5 quest or something similar implemented because people will bypass the old zones needed to complete the original epic. It's not a reason to not have them, but, I do think it waters down the idea of upgradable items when there ultimately becomes some quest that skips over half of the required steps.
chenzeme said:One point I don't seem to see anywhere (forgive me if it has been) and feel very strongly about and I feel should be addressed from the (pre-) start, is that I don’t want to see an epic become worthless because of game expansions. I know that is a long way down the line, but foresight is forewarned.
Do you think that epic viability and progression should be carried over to expansions or should each new area provide its own epic tales?
I used my cleric epic all the way through Plane of Time. I agree that I hope they are something that has value for a long, long time.
Feyshtey said:@vjek
You havent changed anything. You have simply transitioned from wearing a piece of gear to applying an augment. All the same arguments apply to either. If there are enough augments to customize a particular slot on your character the way you want it, the exact same can be said of gear so long as there are enough variety of gear. The only difference is that instead of saying, "Sweet! That helm that just dropped looks badass! And it's an upgrade!", instead you'll be saying, "Who's turn is it to loot the +10 INT aug... yay... ".
Enhancements, adjustments, imbues, enchantments, blessings or augments wouldn't be pre-set, ideally. That's where the choice part comes in, leading to customization. The player chooses the stat/slot/appearance/aspect of ability arsenal/temp/perm/etc. The augments are applied to the gear and/or slot, and depending on design goals, can be an overlay per slot, rather than per piece of gear, which again, goes back to situational gear possibilities. Depending on implementation of this idea, such overlays can be swapped in and out on demand. This can apply to epic gear as well as heroic and solo.
As well, appearance of equipment, with such an idea/system, can be entirely separate, but provide the same social reward, while still permitting more customization. Appearance overlays can then be stored & swapped, if desired.
And personally? I've never seen a game without procedural and personal loot that 'had enough' to allow any meaningfulcustomization. So far, there's no confirmation that Pantheon will have either of those features, so I'm not considering it a viable solution, yet.
If Pantheon goes with static drops only, "so long as there are enough variety of gear" translates to a huge load on designers, which, with a small team, isn't ideal when FTE's are in short supply/high demand.
It is a fair point that if everyone gets an epic and the class specific gear (or BiS items) then we will end up with lots of people looking the same.
Would it be a better idea to make epic rewards (and high end rewards) an adornment of some kind that you can place against equipment of your choice (and remove it again to place against a new item)? This could give stat advantages and weapon effects to show you have an epic reward. In this manner people could weild and wear whatever they felt appropriate but still get whatever bonuses the epic (etc.) gave?
Thoughts?
Evoras said:It seems Brad has hinted at 'option 3' from what I can tell. I.e. 'epic 2' that requires 'epic 1' to be cached in. His comments were more about general pieces of gear and about quest/spell type upgrades, but it seems 'logical' (in the sense of not having any concrete info yet), albeit speculative, to suggest this is the likely path for option-3.
So, it is likely (TM) that your Epic will stay almost as powerful as Kilsin's Backstab for a while!
FAQ #25:
We recognize that the items you gain from your adventures or hard earned gold coins are yours and that you should be able to do with them whatever you want. This means that no-drop and bind-on-equip items will be the exception, not the rule. Epic weapons or items used for quests may be restricted, but the majority of items will not. That said, some quests may require you to turn in an older item in order to complete them. You will also be able to sacrifice items at altars in temples in return for valuable and long lasting ‘buffs’. So while the game will not stop you from handing down most items to other players, it will also encourage you to remove older items from the player-driven economy by rewarding you accordingly.
(underline added)
As per the above, I'm assuming that the current plan is that in order to keep your Uber Sword of Uberness +5 useful, you'll be able to turn it in as part of another quest line to make it Super Uber Sword of Uberness +8 after expansions.
chenzeme said:Love it. Great idea.It is a fair point that if everyone gets an epic and the class specific gear (or BiS items) then we will end up with lots of people looking the same.
Would it be a better idea to make epic rewards (and high end rewards) an adornment of some kind that you can place against equipment of your choice (and remove it again to place against a new item)? This could give stat advantages and weapon effects to show you have an epic reward. In this manner people could weild and wear whatever they felt appropriate but still get whatever bonuses the epic (etc.) gave?
Thoughts?
I would also say, with the context of FAQ #25 above, that allowing salvage/distillation of broken gear drops in the field to temporarily get buffs (while perhaps the permanent variety is done in a temple/at an altar), tied in with colored mana, environmental atmosphere, and the need for situational gear would all work together exceptionally well.
Amsai said: Simple really. Just add a new leg of the journey for epic quests. It will be up to the player to keep their epics updated. So no it won't always be the best weapon if you don't upgrade with the arrival of other new gear/levels.
Agreed. This would allow for use of the current gear in the upgrade chain so to speak. This also speaks to the nature of the items. Are they now growing or living items? I would hope this is the course they take with this. I hated the fact in other games that you would put out a huge effort only to be seriously dissatisfied post a new expack or new content. I can remember this in WoW was a terrible way to go about this. Bad experiences there. In EQ I don’t rmember this being a problem.
Overall, I hope this sort of design goes into the game.
Ox
Just some extra input. But in FFXI Epic weapons (called Relics Weapons in FFXI) were extremely rare. Comparatively speaking, most raid quality items were not nearly as rare. I would say by about 2007ish 1/8th of the population had at least some raid quality items. But Relics were always extremely rare. And the FFXI census for 2007 (the game was releases 2002 in Japan and 2003 US) reported that across 32 servers, only about 9% of the player base had any job classes to max level (75). And of those at level 75 only 778 completed relics across all servers. Total population was more than (dont know exactly how many more) 500k players. Just some food for thought from FFXI on epic weapon rarity.
Vandraad said:All items should, eventually, see an end to their usefullness by some mechanic or another. We should be desiring new things as time passes for to help keep our interest. It doesn't need to be whole sets of gear every expansion but as things progress I want new things for all my slots.
By upgrading an epic wouldnt that mean it would be a new item and more useful...
Aayden said:I kind of hope they go the EQ route of class quests for your class epic weapon. Like something that is hard enough to detur most players so not everyone was going to achieve it. However be appealing enough to still want to complete no matter the time frame or difficulty because its that worth it.
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Agreed. Let hope they don't pull a Blizzard when the do deploy expacks. All your gear is worthless and you get to enjoy the grind all over again...the very description of hollow victory.
Ox
This post was edited by Oxillion at October 5, 2016 3:57 PM PDT
Maybe an epic IS a mod, not something that needs modding to keep current. For example, assuming an epic must be an item, introduce a new slot between the hand and forearm (is there a name for that?). Let's say for example this item for a cleric could have a healing % bonus, or a reverse agro mod, and a button to resurrect players, but that's it no regular item stats. The warrior epic could have an agro mod, or a proc mod, or a dps mod. You could pick any weapon you wanted, the epic would provide you with 3(?) focus options, with a reasonable reset timer (15 mins?). The secondary class traits, like dps mode for the warrior, would of course need to be balanced, in no way do I want to blur the lines between classes.
I dunno, just spitballing.
Edit: I don't know if I would give this epic a graphic or not, but it should definitely give particle effects to whatever weapon you were wielding, always loved the epic particle effects in EQ, especially the bard's.
by class: 2 focus options + a click effect
(in no way is any of this balanced or halfway thought out, I'm just bored atm)
PS: Is the warrior icon 'spiderman looking at a tiny sword' or is it just me?
I like the increment method with some specific thoughts on it, some of which some others have mentioned as well of course.
As people who will be playing the game from release (or before depending on your sub) it's easy to say players need all the previous for the current. We have to remember that hopefully this game will be upgraded/expanded/alive for many years and there will be players that come in 3+ years after release. Requiring them to have all the previous epics to get the current is asking a bit much imo. How much of a bonus does a previous epic add to the current becomes tough at that point though so that players that have epics 1 & 2 don't have a rediculous epic 3 compared to people that didn't do the first 1 and/or 2.
The option to keep previous epics instead of combining for a bonus is also appealing to me. I loved having my bard's 1.0 before I was able to get the PoTime "clicky version" of the haste/stat buff that it had. Also blue notes were awesome...
My preferred method for improving/combining epics is that a container quest [line] would be required (different quest for each highest epic level) to combine/augment/whatever the two instead of simply being able to hand in both. This task wouldn't be too rough because of the whole new player issue, but it could take an ok amount of time and group, not raid, effort. Another simple option for a container is that it takes multiple TS to make. I hate tradeskills, but they need to be worth leveling beyond the typical amor crafting etc. Some of the TS items required could involve a group level drop that is maybe not even tradable. Making it no-drop would help boost the need for players to group/interact together. It would also add to the need of each TS.
I'm also all for the particle/looks mod as long as it doesn't get crazy. The particle additions happened with 1.5 and 2.0 epics in EQ... I think. It has been many years.
Pretty sure all of that makes some sense and there's mostly proper spelling/grammar...
I think epics should be good enough that you won't be able to replace it for at least a couple expansions (2 years or so). The stats should be far beyond anything else you can get. It should be so good that everyone wants to try and get it, even if it's impossible for them, because they're that good.
Perpetual progression of epics should end somewhere though. Lore and myth are not necessarily static. The story of the game must progress to consider interest and inherent change in an evolving world. Technology would advance as well. And with these things, newer epics must emerge at some point.
OakKnower said:Perpetual progression of epics should end somewhere though. Lore and myth are not necessarily static. The story of the game must progress to consider interest and inherent change in an evolving world. Technology would advance as well. And with these things, newer epics must emerge at some point.
This is a good point. I dunno about the whole tech part, based on how I think of RPG weapons in a game like this, but the lore part I agree with. Technology affecting the weapons based on the civilization creating it makes sense. An xpac based underground would be a pretty different culture/manufacturing setup from the upper world (simple/crappy example).
I like the idea of upgrading epics for two reasons: 1) the epic quest is a chance to do something cool 2) it keeps the sense of achievement if your epic isn't buried in a bag or bank slot. I also hope that each epic has an awesome clicky (like EQ1 rez sticks) so they stay awesome even if you have something with better stats.
Retsof said:I like the idea of upgrading epics for two reasons: 1) the epic quest is a chance to do something cool 2) it keeps the sense of achievement if your epic isn't buried in a bag or bank slot. I also hope that each epic has an awesome clicky (like EQ1 rez sticks) so they stay awesome even if you have something with better stats.
Yes! It has to have real and lasting meaning. If it's going to take 1 month of work to get and some real colaboration from you and your guild/friends then I don't want it to become useless in the next expansion pack.
I love the idea of a continued epic story (and rewards) but I am concerned that everyone will end up looking the same (like so many other games). It would be nice to have variety in epic graphics and/or stats so that they could be tailoured a little to each players like and gameplay style. Not excessivley, just a bit of choice. I still like the idea of having an epic reward you can attach to equipment so you can choose your look even more.